Experience
by Mel3
Summary: Told from Jake's POV. Jake meets someone like him.


-Author's Note: I do not own Animorphs, Scholastic and K.A. Applegate do. I do not own anything in this fanfic. Not even the words. The ingenious person who came up with the english language does. But I would still like you not to use my fanfics on any of your sites without permission (there is a 99% chance that i will give you permission if you ask!) I would like to thank the show "Roswell" and the WB for theidea of the doubles. The rest of the ideas are mine though. Thanx, please R&R, Signed Mel-   
  
My name is Jake. No last name. It ain't that cool anyway. Yeah I live somewhere, but I can't tell you that either. I've always been told that there is two of everyone in the world. A twin. I've never believed that... until today. You would never guess that such a brisk, clean, clear morning would turn out as it did. Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. I should start at the very begining. Back even before my friends and I became responsible for the Earth and its future.   
  
_The date is 10 years (give or take a year) before my friends and I gain the power to turn into more animals then your local zoo has._  
  
I am 5. I sit on the hardwood floor of my grandad's living room. The fire crackles next to me. My big brother, Tom, lays next to me, all attention on grandad. ".... And all through the night you could hear them singing. All together. As peaceful as if they were all on the same side in that dreadful war..."  
Grandad always talked about war, and history. Back then I was too young to understand. I remember him dozing off in his big lay-Z-boy. That was when grandma, listening intently to his stories as if she had never heard them before, even though she had a million times, spoke up. She told stories also. I enjoyed hers much more. They were about happier things. People. Animals. Plants. But not about war.   
One of her stories was about a girl and a boy. They visited China with their aunt. There they met another boy and girl. They were exact twins, other then the fact that they weren't blood related. The story went on, but that was the best part. I feel alseep that night feeling happy and content.   
I had a dream that night. In that dream, I was in a barn. A large red barn, with lots of animals. I stand in the middle of the barn, feeling worn down, tired. A girl enters. She has darker skin then me. She is wearing overalls. Her hair is frizzy. She is my age. I dont know how I know that. I just do. She asks me why we are here. I shrug, just like Tom does when I ask him questions. I stick my hand out. "I'm Jake," I say, sounding older then I really am.   
She takes my hand, smiling. "I'm Cassie."  
Suddenly, laughter comes from the back of the barn. Evil, loud, laughter. It feels strange here, in this warm barn. Two children walk out from the shadows. They are mirror images of me and Cassie. Except they are evil. I don't know how I know this either. I just do. It seems like the evil just rolls off them like sweat. They both laugh again. "Who... who are you?" I ask trying to sound unafraid.  
The other me frowns. "I'm hurt Jake. You don't know me?"  
He says in a loud voice. He laughs again and looks at the girl. "Shall we introduce ourselfs?" he asks her.  
"Sure." She says smiling evily at us. "I'm Aberial. This is Max." She says motioning to her partner. "We were sent to kill you." She finishes in an icy tone.  
Cassie screams as Max pulls a gun. "It's alright Frizz," He says to Cassie. "We wont kill you yet." He smiles anmd puts his arm around Aberial. "We will save that for later." Thats when I wake up, sweating beads.   
  
_10 years later (give or take a year)_  
  
"They're what?" Marco screamed at the top of his lungs.   
< Cool it Marco, Cassie's parents are just in the yard. I'm sure they almost heard that. > Tobias said from the rafters where he always perches.   
"Perches?" you must be saying. Well yeah. Hes a red-tailed hawk. You must be really confused now. Let me explain. Tobias, the human boy stuck in hawk morph until the Ellimist "helped" him (thats another story), Marco, my best friend and the guy crying deep down inside, Rachel, my supermodel cousin, Cassie, my kinda girlfriend, Ax, the alien from outer space, and I, Jake, the "leader", make up the Animophs. No we aren't well known. We like it that way. We stay alive that way. Marco was raving about somthing. Rachel was staring into space. Cassie was feeding the animals. Ax was jittering nervously in his human morph. I was watching them all.   
That was when it happened. Two people entered the barn. One male. One female. They were exact copies of Cassie and me. Everything stopped. They smiled together, almost as one. "Max," I whispered.  
I heard Cassie whisper somthing at the same time. At the time I would have bet she had just said "Aberial."   
Marco looked at me. "Do you know these... these people?" he said with a sneer.   
So he felt the evilness also. I ignored him. "Max," I said louder this time.  
"So you remember me? I'm touched." He said with a smile. "Looks like little Jakey has grown up." He laughed.   
Cassie came forward. She stood next to me. "Aberial." She said with all knowledge and understanding she could pack in that one word.   
Max spoke for Aberial. "Frizz! Babe!" He came closer to Cassie, his hand brush the top of her hair, which isn't frizzy anymore. She pulls away as I step inbetween them.   
"What do you want?" I nearly snarled. Meanwhile, Marco, Rachel, and Ax were morphing. Tobias still kept watch, this time very fidgety, switching from one talon to the other. He felt it too.   
Aberial laughed loudly. "Jake, don't you remeber? We came back to kill you. We waited. Now were back to kill you... and your princess," she said sneering at Cassie.   
Max glanced at our friends behind us. "You have no business in this children. This involves Jake and Frizz here."  
Rachel was the first to speak up. < It's Cassie, not Frizz. And anything that includes them, includes us. > Max and Aberial laughed. But if I hadn't seen their faces laughing, I could have sworn only one person was laughing. Cassie shot me a look. She heard it too.   
"If you wish to be included, we have enough ammo for all of you." Max said. He counted us all off. " First we will kill Jake because he is the main reason we are on this pathetic planet, then Cassie..." he went on and on. Me, Cassie, Rachel, Ax, Marco, Tobias.   
I looked at Max. Other then the smug smile on his face, he was my exact copy. Clothes, hair style, even his nails were like mine. It was the same with Aberial and Cassie. Except insead of the caring, sensitive, moral feeling that vibrated off of Cassie, I got... I got nothing from Aberial. No feelings. No evilness. No nothing. No feelings at all.   
I grinned. Max slapped me. "Don't grin you ... ," He said harshly. I didnt feel the pain of the slap, because I had figured out their weakness. Only one was real. Aberial was a toy. A show-off peice. I was the only one suposed to die. Cassie wasn't. That still left the mystery of why she was in the dream. I shook it off. _Ill figure that out later _I thought. Max was the only one who was real. Sure Aberial talked. Not at the same time as Max though. They both laughed and smiled at the same time, that was only because that wouldn't look that weird. I grinned again, flinching very little when the blow came again. I held the grin, while Max screamed and puffed at me to stop. I finally pulled out of my trance after the third slap. The rest of the animorphs seemed to be frozen. Knowing what we were dealing with, I figured they were. I looked at Max.   
"Cassie's not susposed to die is she?" I said more then asked. The room shimmered white. Everything and everyone was gone except Max and me. He glared at me.   
"You are smarter then I expected. Cassie was brought into this by the Ellimist. You were ment to meet. Whether that meant in a dream or in real life it had to happen. I beleive that what you pathetic humans call a soul mate." He scuffed his foot on the floor which seem to go forever in all directions. Up, down, inside, outside. I started to feel the pain from his slapping earlier and i put my hand to my cheek. It burned.   
He laughed. "Hurt more then you thought right?" I didnt answer him, but that was enough to get him happy enough to be ignorant. I started morphing slowly, then picking up speed. He caught on in his fits of laughter.   
"STOP!!" He shouted, pulling the same gun as he had in my dream. I ignored him, tiger enough now to take a bullet or two. He apparently knew that because he threw the gun over his shoulder and to my surprise started morphing. He was using MY morphing skills. MINE! But he was morphing somthing didnt have. A lion. This caught me by surprise.  
< If that punk David can almost kill you with this, I can easily kill you. > He forgot about the skills I had learned since then. He forgot that "Little Jakey had grown up." I threw my heavy tiger body at his morphing lion/human body, knocking the air out of him. He spralled across the floor. Skampering to his feet, I lunged at him. I clawed at his eyes, as he completed the morph.   
< OWWWW!! > He shouted in thought speech.   
< Poor Maxy. He forgot to grow up > I said as claws extended, digging into his neck as he whined and complained about his eyes. He suddenly understood what I was doing as I stared into the lion eyes.  
< Okay Jake. You win.... this time. > Then he died.   
I was automatically transported back to the barn. I stood there feeling empty and cleaned out. Cassie read my eyes and was almost suddenly in my arms telling me it was okay. All my friends demorphed. Marco told me later that he had arrived at the same idea as I had before I was transported. Who's weapon was Max? The Ellimists? Crayak? I guess I will never know. I just know that I have grown. I have learned. And everyday we fight this war, I get older. Somtimes that oldness is bad. There are other times though I thank the heavens that I am as "old" as I am. 


End file.
